“If you see what is happening on TV today, video content is a driver, an engine for technology. People will use more interactive video,” George Makowski, Chief Commercial Officer Business Segment of Romtelecom, present at the Global Forum event, told Business Standard.
The need for interactivity on the business segment is also visible in the videoconference area, for example, Makowski added, considering that this segment has registered significant increases in Romania as well. According to estimates by officials of the Norwegian Tandberg videoconference system producer, the local market will amount to $5 million (€3.38 mln) by year-end, up 25 percent compared to the total sales worth some $4 mln (€2.7 mln) registered last year, due to the focus of companies on cutting business trip generated costs.
On the residential segment, new technologies will give users the possibility of choosing the content they want to watch, the communication environment they wish to use, and the telecom or cable operator they want to sign a contract with.
Also, the internet is leading content industries worldwide to change their strategies while increasingly more intelligent mobile devices intensify the need for creating a new content logic. “In the future, all devices centred on the idea of mobility will become equipment for which most types of applications will be developed. Another change in this direction is the simplification of such devices,” Gerard Mooney, General Manager Global Government and Education of IBM, told Business Standard.
Interactivity is also a subject of concern for current governments. “I see great interest on the part of the authorities in receiving feedback from citizens. In this way, [they] can find out the real needs of people, and governments can prioritize problems which require immediate solutions,” Mooney said, when asked about the advantages of an e-government system.
According to specialists, if the current government were 1.5 percent more efficient, it could unblock sufficient resources to solve most problems. Unfortunately, Romania is the last country in the European Union without an e-governing system, meant to allow the population and companies to interact with the public administration by way of an IT platform.
Implementing such a system is still a matter of political will, said Mooney, and not of technology.
